Announcing a community for researchers who write code… “The Hacker Within”

By Damien Irving.

The problem: how do we help researchers use cutting edge digital tools, so that they can do cutting edge research?

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Researchers use more than just the Microsoft Office suite of software to do their world class research.  Providing support for all the different tools out there is a significant challenge. [Source: David Flanders]

Traditional answer: The typical IT support model would suggest that the ITS Research department (#ITSResearch) should provide a help desk for researchers, staffed with a bunch of programming gurus.  While this would be great, the unfortunate reality is that there isn’t enough money (nor expertise on campus) to support all the discipline specific tools, data and methodologies that researchers use.

Our answer: A better solution is for the graduate students and research staff at #UniMelb (and perhaps even #MonashUni and #RMIT - the more the merrier) to form a community and help each other.

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Inter-university rivalries are fun in a sporting context, but not particularly useful in research. We’re hoping our programming community can reach across institutional (and departmental) boundaries.

If Sarah from the #UniMelb Biology Department is having trouble with a particular programming task, chances are somebody else at her university (perhaps from the Earth Sciences or Medicine Department) or at a university nearby (e.g. #MonashUni, #RMIT) has encountered and solved that very problem. In order to help Sarah link up with that somebody else, #ITSResearch wants to assist in establishing a new community known as The Hacker Within (#HackerWin). In other words, a group of researchers who write code, helping other researchers who write code.

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The #HackerWin concept was pioneered at the University of Wisconsin a few years ago. This article explains how it started and where the name comes from. [Source]

Who is going to lead the “Hacker Within” community?

That would be me… hi, I’m Damien! As part of my role as a Research Community Coordinator with #ITSResearch, I’ll be leading the #HackerWin community. When I’m not working on my PhD (looking at climate change in Antarctica), I’m a qualified instructor with Software Carpentry and also blog and tweet (@DrClimate) about research best practice in the weather/climate sciences. In other words, I’m pretty passionate about this stuff! Of course, a community is not just one person, so I’d love to catch up over coffee and hear your ideas!

I gave a presentation at PyCon 2013 about Software Carpentry activities in Australia. As I said, I’m pretty passionate about helping researchers improve their programming!

Who has already joined #HackerWin?

Off the back of our first event (a Software Carpentry bootcamp that you can read about here), we already have a core group of people attending our formal monthly meetings:

  • Artika Nath (Medical Systems Biology)

  • Bernd Merkel (Radiology)

  • Errol Lloyd (Neuroscience)

  • Isabell Kiko (Biomedical Engineering)

  • Mitchell Black (Earth Sciences)

  • Katie Ewing (Biomechanics)

  • Michael Wang (Chemical Engineering)

  • Scott Ritchie (Medical Systems Biology)
  • Elyse Passmore (Biomechanics)
  • Harriet Dashnow (Bioinformatics)

How can I get involved?

All those interested in being a part of #HackerWin are encouraged to come along to Hacky Hour.